Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.

We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia.

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.

It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.

All mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ.

The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flow - by the tilt of the social landscape.